The Wedding Night (1935)

March 16, 1935

' The Wedding Night,' King Vidor's New Production, at the Rivoli -- 'High School Girl.'

By ANDRE SENNWALD.

Published: March 16, 1935

With the assistance of King Vidor, Hollywood steps out of its emotional swaddling clothes in "The Wedding Night," which began an engagement at the Rivoli yesterday. In an uncommonly adult style, Mr. Goldwyn's new production describes the progress of a thwarted romance between a ginsoaked novelist and a Polish farm-girl in the Connecticut tobacco country. Hollywood has taught us to expect that little things like language, tradition and character are no obstacles when a high-powered romance is roaring across the screen. But "The Wedding Night" displays an unusual regard for the truth and it is courageous enough to allow an affair which is obviously doomed to end logically in tragedy. Although its materials are too conventional to result in great screen drama, the film is handsomely arresting, and it represents a satisfying compromise between Mr. Vidor, the realist, and Mr. Goldwyn, the romantic.

In "The Wedding Night," Mr. Goldwyn's favorite actress, Anna Sten, the daughter of an old-fashioned Polish farmer, is hindered on every hand by her great love for Gary Cooper, who is writing a book about the manners and customs of Connecticut's Polish settlement. After the habit of her countrymen, Manya has been affianced by her family to the loutish son of a neighboring family. Gradually she becomes the heroine, and the novelist the hero, of the novel on which he is working. Steeped in Old-World traditions, she finds herself growing away from the relentless customs of her family. When her father, angered by her association with the novelist, insists on her immediate marriage, she submits only because the return of the writer's wife leaves her no choice. Tony Barrett, on his side, has been refreshed in mind and spirit by Manya's vigorous and earthy charm. When his wife indignantly declines to divorce him, he, too, is thwarted. It is an intolerable situation which reaches its climax when Manya's drunken bridegroom, outraged by his bride's frigid deportment toward him, sets out to murder the novelist. In the resulting brawl, Manya is killed, thereby resolving a tragic situation in the only way that could have any hint of finality about it.

It is the one flaw in the drama that it depends too strenuously on the inevitability of the illicit romance. Strictly speaking, the novelist's wife is a charming metropolitan politan lady who has done nothing to earn his disfavor. Far from deserting him, she has returned to New York at his own insistence so that he can work in peace. Until Manya appears on the scene, their marriage seems a completely happy one. But within the limitations of a narrative which is rescued from banality only by the uncompromising violence of its dénouement, Mr. Vidor has made a photoplay which is both pictorially and dramatically striking. Returning to the fold after his rebellious sabbatical in "Our Daily Bread," he recites the tale with admirable reticence and technical skill.

Led by the handsome and highly talented Russian star, the performers are uniformly expert. Mr. Cooper continues to reveal a refreshing sense of humor in his work. Helen Vinson is excellently right as the wife, playing the part with such intelligence and sympathy that she contributes definitely to the power of the climax. That brilliant actor, Siegfried Rumann, is also helpful as the bitter Polish father who insists on the old-fashioned style of running a home. "The Wedding Night" is a decided credit both to Mr. Goldwyn and Mr. Vidor, although this petulant column prefers the brilliant director of "The Crowd" and "Our Daily Bread" in a less conventional mood of story-telling.